Problems
of Socialism in the Light of the Marxist-Leninist Theory

and
the Historical Experience of the Party of Labour of Albania

By
Foto Çami – Member of the CC of the
PLA.

The problems of
socialism, the features of the socialist order and the road to the
triumph and construction of socialism have been placed today at the
centre of the ideological struggle which goes on on a world scale

Thirty-five
years of people's power, under the leadership of the party, are
thirty-five years of gigantic battles of the Albanian people for the
construction, ceaseless development and strengthening of the new
socialist order in Albania. In these three and a half decades
socialism, from an aspiration and science, became a living reality
which has shown its strength and vitality, its incontestable
superiority over the old feudal-bourgeois order. In the conditions of
socialism, Albania overcame its centuries-long backwardness and set
out on the road of progress and vigorous social, economic, political
and cultural development. Colossal achievements have been made in all
the branches of the economy and the other fields of social
activities. The past fades into insignificance in comparison with the
present.

New
Albania is the vivid example not only of the carrying out with
success of the socialist revolution, but also of its uninterrupted
development. The revolution in Albania has not proceeded with
zigzags, it has not suffered set-backs, but has always forged ahead.
This is the great historic: merit of the Party of Labour of Albania
and of the leader of the Party and people, Comrade Enver Hoxha. This
experience has a theoretical and practical value because it proves
that what happened in the Soviet Union, in China and the other
socialist countries which degenerated into bourgeois-revisionist
countries, is not an unavoidable fatality, that, if the principles of
Marxism-Leninism are implemented and defended rigorously, the cause
of socialism is invincible, unbreakable.

The
problems of socialism, the features of the socialist order and the
road to the triumph and construction of socialism have been placed
today at the centre of the ideological struggle which goes on on a
world scale.

The
popularity, the attractive power of socialism has become so great
that everybody, social-democrats and revisionists, democratic
revolutionaries and other representatives of bourgeois and
petty-bourgeois trends, speak of it. Some preach socialism without
revolution, without the dictatorship of the proletariat and without
Marxism-Leninism, some are for pluralist, humanitarian and democratic
socialism, some others preach national and regional socialism, or
self-administrative socialism which is counterposed to “étatist”
socialism, and there some others still who try to pass the
re-establishment of capitalism in their own countries as real and
developed socialism.

All
these efforts are made in order to negate genuine socialism and to
create the illusion that there are many models and kinds of
socialism, with the allegation that the world has been changing, that
new conditions have been created for going to socialism in ways
different from the practices known to date and from what the
Marxist-Leninist theory teaches.

At
the root of all these preachings lies the negation of the fundamental
common features of socialism as a socio-economic system, which
constitute its essence and distinguish it from any other system, the
negation of the general laws of the construction and development of
the socialist society. Advocating several models of socialism stems
from the negation of the leading role of the working class and its
communist vanguard, the negation of the only theory of scientific
socialism – Marxism-Leninism.

The
Yugoslav and Khrushchevite revisionists began their attack against
Marxism-Leninism and socialism by attacking the revolutionary ideas
and work of Stalin, allegedly in order to go back to Lenin. The
present-day “Eurocommunist” revisionists who follow in
the footsteps of the Khrushchevites are going even further afield.
Now they have launched an open attack against Lenin and Leninism in
order to go back to Marx. According to them, Leninism has grown
obsolete, or at best, is suitable only to the backward countries.

There
is nothing new in the claims of the modern revisionists that “Lenin
has departed from Marxism”. They were spread by the
social-democrats 60 years ago. It was precisely Kautsky who accused
Lenin of “revising Marxism”. The real aim of this
anti-Leninist campaign of the modern revisionists is not the return
to Marx, but the complete abandoning of Marxism-Leninism in form,
too. This has been sanctioned in the programs and constitutions of
some revisionist parties as well as in the international documents
published by these parties in which the term Marxism-Leninism is
completely omitted and is stressed that Marxism-Leninism is not the
only theoretical, ideological guide of the party of the working
class.

All
this is meant to .create a great confusion and, disorganisation among
the working class and the peoples, to blur the perspective for them
and to turn them away from the correct road of the struggle against
the capitalist and imperialist order, to weaken their confidence
in-the ideals of socialism and in the superiority of the socialist
order, to alienate them from Marxism-Leninism, as the only scientific
theory of socialism. This is the great service which the modem
revisionists render the bourgeoisie, this is their
counter-revolutionary road.

In
these circumstances a correct conception of socialism and of the
roads to its realization is imperative. Without reflecting on these
questions, the aspirations and the struggle of the peoples for
socialism can never be channelled correctly, they can never set
themselves a clear objective. “In our time,” Comrade
Enver Hoxha says, “the problem does not arise of copying the
revisionist pseudo-socialist theories, or of inventing new socialist
theories. Socialism exists and develops both as a theory and as a
practice. It has accumulated rich historic experience, summed up in
the Marxist-Leninist theory, the vitality of which has been confirmed
in life. By relying on this scientific theory and applying it in the
conditions of each country, the revolutionary forces will find the
correct road to socialism” (E. Hoxha, Report to the 6th
Congress of the PLA, p. 243, Eng. ed.).

A
brilliant demonstration of this great teaching is the successful
construction of socialism in Albania. The Party of Labour of Albania
has never pretended to present this experience of its own as
something perfect, which overcomes all difficulties and
contradictions, and even less has it pretended to present it as
something of universal value. However, in this experience of ours we
see the embodiment in life of the fundamental principles of
Marxism-Leninism, the general laws of the revolution and socialist
construction, which our Party has known how to apply in a creative
manner in the conditions of Albania and in the complicated
international situations.

In
the great struggle for the triumph of the revolution, the
construction of socialism and the defence of Marxism-Leninism, the
theoretical thinking of our Party, the outstanding theoretical Work
of Comrade Enver Hoxha, which constitutes a valuable contribution in
the treasury of Marxism-Leninism, have also developed. They are a
powerful means in the hands of the Party and the masses of the people
for the advance of the great cause of communism, an inexhaustible
source of inspiration to all those who fight for the triumph and the
defence of freedom and national independence, the revolution and
socialism.

The
experience of socialist construction in Albania is broad and many
sided. It has been reflected in the documents of the Party and the
Works of Comrade Enver Hoxha. In this report I shall dwell only on
some problems which seem more pertinent to the present situation of
the great struggle which is being waged between socialism and
capitalism, Marxism-Leninism and the revolution.

1.
On the Relationship between Economy and Politics

The
establishment of a correct relationship between the economy and
politics is one of the fundamental questions of the strategy of the
revolutionary party of the working class and a decisive condition for
the triumph of the revolution and the successful construction of
socialism. It is precisely for this reason that the bourgeois and
modern revisionist ideologists today are making strenuous efforts to
distort this question, to divorce the economy from politics and to
urge the revolutionary forces towards such road. Just as in the past,
underlying the foundations of the views of the modern opportunists is
their departure from the proletarian policy, their adoption of
another variant of economism, technocratism – the theory of the
forces of production. This anti-Marxist course is backed up with a
sort of theoretical argument namely, that allegedly under socialism
the economic aspect of Marxism comes to the fore.

On
this basis developed Khrushchevite opportunism which led to the
liquidation of the communist party and the dictatorship of the
proletariat in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, to the destruction of
the socialist base of the economy, to the ideological and political
degeneration of people, to the re-establishment of capitalism and the
transformation of the Soviet Union into an imperialist, aggressive
and counter-revolutionary power. On this basis developed and spread
also the other revisionist concepts on the peaceful integration of
capitalism into socialism through various reforms without affecting
the political and economic base of the bourgeois order, on the
so-called non-capitalist road of development, or that of socialist
orientation, without the leadership of the working class and its
revolutionary party, on political and ideological pluralism also in
the conditions of socialism, and so on.

In
all its activity, both during the National Liberation War and during
the period of socialist construction the Party of Labour of Albania
has been guided by the dialectical connection of the economy with
politics, by always giving priority to proletarian politics. “The
policy of the Party”, Comrade Enver Hoxha has said, “is a
question of capital importance. Everything bears the stamp of the
policy of the party. This policy everybody must study and have in
mind, nothing should be seen outside its angle. No class, Lenin
teaches us, can rule without a political stand of its own towards any
problem. On such a work, on such a way of understanding things and on
the correct implementation of the line of the Party depends the
successful construction of socialism and its defence from the
dangerous attacks of the internal and external enemies” (E.
Hoxha, Reports and Speeches, 1974-1975, pp. 186 187, Alb. ed.).

By
making a correct analysis of the economic situation in the country,
the ratio of classes, the changes which occurred after the fascist
occupation and the complicated international situation during the
Second World War, the Party knew how to work out a correct political
strategy and tactics, which led to the great historic victory of the
people's revolution. It did not stand by, waiting till a high level
of economic development was reached, till capitalism developed in
extension and the working class could be formed in large numbers, as
the various opportunist elements preached, but it hurled itself into
action and, in the course of the struggle, created the great alliance
with the peasantry which constituted the overwhelming majority of the
population of the country, became the architect of the broad union of
the Albanian people in the Anti-fascist National Liberation Front,
set up a new army of the people and for the people, laid the
foundations of the new people's democratic power and connected
closely the question of national liberation with the question of
social liberation.

The
Party made correct use of the favourable revolutionary situation
which had been created in the country, a situation which became
mature not so much as a result of the economic development as of the
other political and national factors. It treated in a creative
revolutionary manner both the content of the revolutionary situation,
as the objective condition closely and directly linked with the
revolution, and its relationship with the role of the subjective
factor. It is true that the revolutionary situation is not created
arbitrarily, according to the wishes and will of people and political
parties, but it matures objectively with the social, economic, and
political development of the country. However, the subjective factor
plays an important active role in the maturing of the revolutionary
situation by retarding or accelerating it. The revolutionary party
cannot watch idly the flow of events, or remain at the tail of the
situations, waiting for the great day of the revolution. Revolution
must be prepared every day, continually and with all-round political,
ideological, organizational and military work.

Closely
connected with the relationship between the economy and politics is
also the question of the development of the people's revolution into
the socialist revolution. As is known, due to its low level of
socio-economic development, Albania in the past did not directly cope
with the tasks of the socialist revolution. However, in the
historical conditions in which the revolution was carried out in
Albania, all the possibilities for the country to go over to
socialism existed. In the epoch of imperialism, as Lenin has pointed
out, when the world system of the capitalist economy has been
created, the economies of individual countries cannot exist as
independent units, but as links in the world economy of capitalism.
And as long as the imperialist system as a whole is mature for the
socialist revolution, then the economic backwardness of the country
is not an insurmountable obstacle to the development of the
democratic revolution into the socialist revolution. On the other
hand, in the period of the fascist occupation of the country and of
the Second World War, the tasks of a democratic character were
closely interconnected with the tasks of a socialist character. The
struggle against fascism in our country was objectively a struggle
against the capitalist and imperialist order, fascism being its
offspring. The main exploiting classes of the country – the
feudal owners and the big bourgeoisie, made common cause with the
foreign occupier. The National Liberation War was closely connected
with the great Patriotic War of the socialist Soviet Union. This
created the objective premises not only for the transformation of the
National Liberation War into a deep-going people's revolution, but
also for the development of this revolution into a socialist
revolution. The decisive factor which utilized these premises and
realized this revolutionary process was the leadership of the working
class and of its communist party.

This
experience was a living and concrete example of the putting into
practice of the Leninist theory of the revolution and a new test ,of
this theory, which teaches us that in the epoch of imperialism and of
the transition from capitalism to socialism the tasks of a democratic
and socialist character come very much close to each other, and when
the people's democratic or national democratic revolutions are guided
by the proletariat and its Marxist-Leninist vanguard, then all the
possibilities exist, with the solidarity and support of the socialist
and revolutionary forces of the world, for the democratic revolution
to be transformed into the socialist revolution and these two
revolutions to be linked up as two stages of the same and
uninterrupted revolutionary process.

With
the establishment of the people's power, as the form of the
dictatorship of the proletariat, after the liberation of the country
from the foreign invaders and the local traitors, a new contradiction
which is characteristic especially of the countries which embark on
the socialist road inheriting a great backwardness from the past,
arose in Albania. This was the contradiction between the advanced
form of the political power and the backward state of the economy,
between the socialist character of the political power and the
feudal-bourgeois character of the economic relations. For this
contradiction to be resolved it was essential that the centuries-long
backwardness of the country should be overcome. The only correct road
was that of liquidating the old relations of production, beginning
from the liquidation of the hangovers of feudalism and the
interference of foreign capital, which were the main cause of this
backwardness and their replacement with the new socialist relations
of production, which would open a broad road to the development of
the forces of production. With the carrying out of the people's
revolution the Party had created the essential political conditions
for the construction of socialism in Albania, bypassing the painful
capitalist road of suffering and misery. The political power, the
dictatorship of the proletariat became the main weapon in the hands
of the Party, the working class and the working masses for the
socialist transformation of the country.

In
order to make this transformation, the Party and the people's power
had to go through an entire historical period, which lasted about
15-20 years. The objective necessity for such a period flowed from
the fact that socialism, as a new social order, is not born and
established spontaneously in the bosom of capitalism, as the
present-day revisionists strive “to prove”, but is built
in a conscious manner after the overthrow of the political power of
the bourgeoisie and the establishment of the dictatorship of the
proletariat. The essence, the fundamental contents of this period
consist in the socialist transformation of the economy, the abolition
of the old relations of production which rely on the private
ownership of the means of production, and their replacement with the
new relations of production, which rely on the social ownership of
the means of production. This process in our country was carried out
through deep-going revolutionary reforms and transformations, such as
the expropriation of the bourgeoisie through the nationalization of
the principal means of production and the setting of the small
producers on the road of socialism through cooperation, and led to
the final liquidation of private property and the establishment of
socialist social ownership both in town and in the countryside, to
the liquidation of the multi-formed economy and the creation of a
single system of the socialist economy, which is developed by the
state according to plan and on the basis of the economic laws of
socialism. On this basis were liquidated the exploiting classes as
such and, together with them, also the exploitation of man by man,
the socialist principle of remuneration “each according to his
abilities and to each according to his work”, was established
everywhere.

With
the construction of the economic base of socialism, our country
embarked on a new historical period, that of the complete
construction of the socialist society. In this period two major tasks
emerged on the first plane: the task of the complete construction of
the material-technical base of socialism, connected with the
overcoming of the contradiction emerging between the new relations of
production and the relatively low level of the forces of production,
and the task of perfecting the whole political and ideological
superstructure of the society, connected with the struggle for
purging it off anything obsolete and alien so that it could suit and
serve the new economic base better. For the solution of these two
major tasks and for the further improvement of the relations of
production, the Party and the people's state power adopted a series
of important measures of a political and economic character which led
to the vigorous development of the economy on the road of the rapid
transformation of Albania from an agrarian-industrial country into an
industrial-agrarian country, as well as to the further
revolutionization of the entire life of the country.

On
this score, the struggle of the party on a broad front against the
hangovers of the old society and against the influences of the
present bourgeois-revisionist world has great theoretical and
practical importance. This process enveloped all spheres of life –
the economy and policy, ideology and culture; it affected the base
and the superstructure of the society and, above all, man, his
consciousness and world-outlook. Serving this aim are also the
struggle against liberalism and bureaucracy, technocracy and
intellectualism, the struggle for the revolutionization of the Party
and the state power, the army and the school; the establishment of
correct relations between cadres and masses, the great movements for
putting the general interest above the personal interest, the
struggle against religion and backward customs, for the complete
emancipation of woman, for the deepening of the ideological and
cultural revolution, and so on.

The
further revolutionization of the life of the country was not a
spontaneous or anarchist process or an administrative-bureaucratic
action; it was a process of the deepening of the revolution in all
fields, organized and directed by the Party and carried out with the
active and direct participation of the masses through mass actions
and great revolutionary movements. It was a fierce and all-round
class struggle, which was conducted with the aim of rooting out of
the life of our society and the consciousness of people any noxious
weed and influence of the capitalist-revisionist world and of barring
the paths to the danger of bourgeois degeneration.

In
all this extensive revolutionary activity the Party also took account
of the negative experience of that retrogressive
counter-revolutionary process which happened in the Soviet Union and
elsewhere. Alongside of the struggle of historic importance for
exposing and smashing the revisionist betrayal, from the beginning
the Party took upon itself the task of finding the causes of the
emergence of revisionism so as to be able to avoid such a phenomenon
occurring in our country. On this basis and on the basis of our own
revolutionary practice, rich experience was gained about how to bar
the road to the danger of the re-establishment of capitalism, whether
from within or from outside, how to ensure the uninterrupted
continuation of the revolution and the successful construction of
socialism. Such an experience was lacking in the international
communist movement even in its later stages. The Soviet Union could
not create this experience because the revolutionary process there
was interrupted by the revisionist counter-revolution. This
experience is being created now. Our Party with Comrade Enver Hoxha
at the head is making a valuable contribution to the solution of this
historic task.

Albania
today gives a living and concrete example of how the new socialist
society is built and defended. The Albanian socialist reality refutes
the slanders of the modern revisionists of the Carrillo type and
others, who present the socialism established in the undeveloped
countries as formal socialism.

Ours
is a genuinely socialist society, in which the dictatorship of the
proletariat is in power and the Marxist-Leninist party of the working
class gives undivided leadership, in which there are no more
exploiting classes and exploitation of man by man, where the law
prohibits and all paths are barred to the emergence of private
property and the penetration of foreign capital. It is characterized
by a steel unity of the people around the Parity, a unity which has
at its foundations the alliance of the working class with the
cooperativist peasantry. In our society not only social antagonisms
have been wiped out, but also distinctions between the working class
and the peasantry, town and countryside, mental and physical work are
continually being levelled out. The law provides for the
establishment of correct differentials in the remuneration of the
masses so that no privileged strata are allowed to be created.

Socialism
which is established in Albania according to the teachings of
Marxism-Leninism opened the road for our people to advance in all
fields. It released their inexhaustible energies, discovered their
wonderful abilities and talents, developed the initiative and
creative spirit of the masses of working people, and made them the
masters of the country; it freed woman from centuries-old bondage,
from heavy social and class oppression, and put her in the honoured
place which belongs to her by right as a great social force; it
opened brilliant perspectives to the youth and the intelligentsia
towards knowledge, culture and science in the service of the people
and the socialist homeland; it placed ,the peasantry in new,
socialist socio-economic conditions, and made the working class the
backbone of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the class which with
its consciousness, drive at work and lofty revolutionary spirit,
gives the tone to the entire life of the country.

The
backwardness, poverty and illiteracy which the country inherited from
the past, are now only bitter memories. As a result of the policy of
the Party for the industrialization of the country, Albania today has
a new industry, developed in many branches, and marches steadily
towards its transformation into an industrial-agricultural country.
It has now a collectivized agriculture which, with the efforts of the
cooperativist peasantry and the entire people, has set out on the
road of its ceaseless intensification and modernization. A new
culture of the masses and for the masses, with socialist content,
popular spirit and national features, has been put at the service of
the communist education of the working people. On the basis of the
growth of production, the living standard has been continuously
raised not for a few people but for all, ever better fulfilling not
the petty-bourgeois whims of some people but the vital needs of the
broad masses of working people. Socialist Albania today is a
completely free and sovereign state, it has a secure defence which is
in a position to cope with any aggression from whichever quarter it
may come, because an entire people, politically and militarily
prepared, stand guard of the freedom and independence, the victory
of, the revolution. Its international position is stronger than ever,
it has numerous friends and admirers in the world, who see in
socialist Albania a great example and a source of inspiration.

The
reality of socialist Albania has shown its vitality through the many
historical tests, and especially in its three major clashes with the
Yugoslav, Khrushchevite and Chinese revisionists. Revisionist
betrayal not only failed to pass in Albania, but the Party of Labour
of Albania became the standard-bearer of the struggle for the
exposure of modern revisionism, the ardent defender of Marxism
Leninism and the revolutionary cause of the proletarians and peoples.
Just as all the efforts of the Yugoslav and Khrushchevite
revisionists failed ignominiously, so the hopes of the new Chinese
revisionists were shattered, when after the cutting off of Chinese
aid and credits they expected to see the Party of Labour and the
Albanian people kneeling before them.

Socialist
Albania stood unshaken in its revolutionary positions and showed the
whole world that even in the conditions of the savage imperialist
revisionist blockade, even in the conditions of the grave crisis
which has the capitalist, bourgeois and revisionist world in its
grip, .it is in a position to march forward non-stop on the road of
socialism, securing at the same time high development rates and
gradually but steadily raising the living standard of its people,
without stretching its hand to anyone, relying exclusively on its own
forces.

This
is the glorious work of the Party of Albania, the example of
victorious socialism in Albania which will shine in the centuries in
the history of international communism.

2.
Contradictions, Classes and the Class Struggle in Socialism

The
revolution and socialism in Albania have developed with success and
have forged always ahead because the Party of Labour of Albania has
consistently stuck to the line of the class struggle and applied it
with determination in practice, correctly treating and solving the
various contradictions of our socialist society.

The
whole period of the construction of socialism has been a period of
fierce class struggle waged in all fields, political, economic,
ideological and military, against the internal and external enemies
as well as in the ranks of the Party and in the midst of the people.
The enemies have fought us with all weapons and means, with blackmail
and provocations, with pressure and interference, with the aim of
containing and undermining the construction of socialism and
eventually destroying it altogether. However, all these efforts of
the coalition of the foreign and local enemies, who acted in
collusion with each other, met with complete defeat against the sharp
vigilance of the Party and the unbreakable unity of the Party with
the people. A similar defeat awaits the enemies and their activity in
the future, too, because in Albania are working a valiant and
indomitable people led by an eagle-eyed party, which is the sharp
edge of the sword of the working class and which consistently
implements the teachings of Marxism-Leninism.

From
this rich experience as well as from the counter-revolutionary turn
which events took in the Soviet Union and China and elsewhere, our
Party has drawn conclusions of principled importance, which
constitute a further development of the Marxist-Leninist theory on
the class struggle. These problems should be re-examined today not
only because we must treat them ever more deeply, but also because
some misunderstanding has to be cleared up and the distortions of the
modern revisionists, and in particular those of the Chinese
revisionists now, have to be refuted.

The
Chinese revisionists have come out with great pretentious in the
field of ,theory, presenting the so-called Mao Tsetung thought as a
new higher stage in the development of Marxism-Leninism, as the
Marxism-Leninism of our epoch. In his outstanding work, “Imperialism
and the Revolution” and in his political diary, “Reflections
on China”, Comrade Enver Hoxha has made a principled, thorough
and all-round criticism of Chinese revisionism, the theory and
practice of “Mao Tsetung thought”.

The
Chinese propaganda says that “the most important contribution
which Mao Tsetung has made to Marxism-Leninism is the theory of the
continuation of the revolution under the dictatorship of the
proletariat”. It must be said from the beginning that if Mao
Tsetung has any “merit” at all in this question, this is
that he has confused and badly distorted this problem, thus not only
making no contribution to the Marxist theory, but bringing about a
great confusion and making a flagrant distortion of it.

It
is an elementary truth known to every Marxist that the specific
feature of the socialist revolution, one of the essential points
which distinguishes it from all the other revolutions known in
history, is that it does not end with the seizure of power, but
continues as an uninterrupted revolution even after the seizure of
power during the entire period of the dictatorship of the proletariat
until communism. Thus, Mao Tsetung has made no discovery at all.

According
to the Chinese theoreticians, “the theory of the continuation
of the revolution in the conditions of the dictatorship of the
proletariat” has at its foundation the acceptance of the
existence of antagonistic classes in socialism, which exist
objectively until communism. What is the truth about this question
and what does our experience show?

It
is known that the exploiting classes have come to exist in history
alongside of the emergence of private ownership of the means of
production, and they exist as long as this ownership exists. In
socialism, with the liquidation of private ownership and the
establishment of socialist relations of production in town and
countryside, the exploiting classes as such are liquidated, and
together with them also the exploitation of man by man. For a time
only their leftovers as individuals linger on, but they do not
constitute a class in themselves, because now they are bereft of all
political power and the means of production.

In
socialism there exist some objective conditions and factors which
facilitate the emergence of a new bourgeois class. Apart from
ideological factors, bourgeois pressure from outside and inside,
there exists also the “bourgeois right”, the principle of
distribution according to work, which hides in itself a sort of
inequality between people, and still allows the existence of
distinctions between town and countryside, between mental and
physical work, etc. On this basis even in socialism new bourgeois
elements emerge, but they do not turn into a new bourgeois class in
every instance. They become such a class, as the experience of the
revisionist countries shows, only if the new bourgeoisie usurps
power, if the principle of remuneration according to work is violated
and great differences in income are permitted, if the struggle
against various distortions in the socialist relations of production
and against the hangovers of alien stands towards the proletarian
ideology and policy of the Party is not waged. All this is a
permanent possibility, not a fatality. This danger is avoidable by
means of all-round ideological and political, organizational and
economic measures. This is proved by the experience of socialism in
Albania, where not only the old exploiting classes have been
liquidated long ago, but the emergence of new exploiting classes has
not been allowed.

The
advocates of “Mao Tsetung thought” claim that “if
antagonistic classes did not exist in socialism there would be no
need for the dictatorship of the proletariat until the stage of
communism”. The existence of the dictatorship of the
proletariat until communism is not necessarily linked with the
existence of antagonistic classes. On this score, the Khrushchevite
revisionists declared the liquidation of the dictatorship of the
proletariat in the Soviet Union as a consequence of the liquidation
of the exploiting classes.

The
need for the dictatorship of the proletariat to exist even after the
liquidation of the old exploiting classes, as the Party of Labour of
Albania has explained, is connected with the continuation of the
class struggle up till communism, and the continuation of this
struggle up till that time is connected with a series of other
factors and not necessarily with the existence of antagonistic
classes. These factors, which exist inside the country, are
the leftovers of capitalism which cannot be wiped out instantly, but
linger on for a relatively long time and manifest themselves in many
fields of life, especially in the field of ideology and the so-called
bourgeois right, in the distinctions between town and countryside,
mental and physical work, etc.; outside the country there is
the great and all-round ideological, political, economic and military
pressure of the capitalist and revisionist world, which does not pass
without having its impact on our people. The dictatorship of the
proletariat is needed precisely to suppress the enemies of socialism,
who emerge as a result of these factors, to avoid the danger of a
switch-back to capitalism, to ensure the uninterrupted development of
the socialist revolution until the triumph of communism on a world
scale.

“The
theory of the continuation of the revolution under the dictatorship
of the proletariat”, as presented by Mao and his followers, in
fact is an attempt at sanctioning the wrong opportunist line which
has been pursued in China and which has led not only to failure to
liquidate the old exploiting classes, but even to the emergence of
the new bourgeois .class, which shares power in China.

The
distorted treatment of this problem in social life is also connected
with its distorted treatment within the party. According to “Mao
Tsetung thought”, the party of the working class is divided
into antagonistic classes, with their bourgeois and proletarian
headquarters, and as a result, two lines, which express the interests
of these two classes, exist in it objectively and unavoidably. In
this question, too, we have to do with a flagrant deviation from
Marxism-Leninism.

The
division of society into classes is not necessarily expressed in the
division of the party into classes. It is true that people from
different classes come into the party, but they do not come in the
quality of representatives of these classes. “The Party is not
the arena of classes and of the struggle between antagonistic
classes", says Comrade Enver Hoxha, “it is not a gathering
of people with contradictory aims" (E. Hoxha, “Imperialism
and the Revolution”, p. 400, Engl. ed.). The Marxist-Leninist
party is the militant union of people who are inspired by the same
ideals and fight for the same aim, and these are the ideals and aims
of .the working class.”

Of
course, the people who come into the party, not only those from
non-proletarian strata but also those from the working class itself,
are not free from the influences and ideologies of the bourgeoisie
and petty-bourgeoisie, feudalism and patriarchalism. The communists
live, work and fight in the midst of society, in which the class
struggle is waged, and they are not immune from alien influences and
manifestations. The external pressure from the capitalist and
revisionist world acts on the entire society and on the party members
as well. All these constitute that basis on which the class struggle
in the party is waged.

This
class struggle in the party is objective, unavoidable, it is the
reflection of the class struggle which goes on in society. However,
the class struggle in the party is not expressed in every instance
and in an unavoidable manner as a struggle between two lines. The
class struggle in the party is objective and unavoidable but not the
existence of two lines.

The
line of the party is a complex of directives and orientations for an
entire historical period; it defines the aims of the party as well as
the ways to reach them. The party of the working class can have but
one line, the line of the revolution, of the dictatorship of the
proletariat, of the construction of socialism and communism. From
this standpoint, not any alien manifestation in the party, not any
opposition, not any divergency, represent a line apart. It is another
matter whom they serve and to what mill they are grist. These matters
cannot and must not be confused. Otherwise the consequences would
very grave; this would lead to sectarianism, to smothering of
democracy in the party, to confusing friends with foes.

To
accept that the bourgeois line in the party exists objectively,
independently of the wishes of people, means to accept the fatalistic
and anti-dialectical concept which confuses the possibility with the
reality. Since the emergence of the bourgeois line is only a
possibility, to present it as something which exists fatally means to
open the road, in a conscious manner, to the bourgeois line in the
party and to undermine the party, the dictatorship of ,the
proletariat and socialism. The present events in China are the direct
consequence of the course of Mao Tsetung on permitting two opposed
lines in the party.

It
is claimed that the concrete implementation of the “theory of
the continuation of the revolution under the dictatorship of the
proletariat” is the great proletarian cultural revolution which
was launched and led by Mao Tsetung, whose aim allegedly was to bar
the road to that evil which occurred in the Soviet Union and
elsewhere. However, as Comrade Enver Hoxha has explained and
expounded extensively in his work, “Imperialism and the
Revolution” and in his political diary, “Reflections on
China”, the cultural revolution in China was neither cultural,
nor great, nor, less so, a proletarian revolution. It is a fierce
struggle for power on a national scale between anti-Marxist groups
and clans. In fact, the cultural revolution was the product of the
opportunist line of Mao Tsetung, the product of the struggle between
different lines, none of which was Marxist. Not only had Mao allowed
this grave situation, this great chaos in China to exist, but he has
also presented this cultural revolution as a universal law for the
socialist countries, as something absolutely necessary and
unavoidable, which should be repeated every 7-8 years. This means to
preach fatalism, to paralyse the effort of the party and the masses
to bar the road to revisionism and to sanction, in fact, the
existence of bourgeois elements, and even to open the way for them to
usurp power.

In
treating the problem of the class struggle in socialism, especially
after liquidation of the exploiting classes, it is essential to take
account of the new conditions in which this struggle is waged. The
class struggle is a general law of the development of human society
divided into antagonistic classes, and which goes on even in
socialism for known reasons. However, just as all the other general
laws, the law of the class struggle manifests itself concretely in
every socio-economic formation, it has its specific features and
undergoes respective changes in harmony with the socio-economic
conditions in which it operates.

Acceptance
or rejection in theory and in practice of the class struggle in
socialism even after the liquidation of the antagonistic classes is a
question of great principled and vital importance, is a fundamental
line of demarcation between the Marxist-Leninists and the
revisionists. Even under socialism, the 7th Congress of the Party of
Labour of Albania pointed out, the class struggle is an objective
phenomenon, the main motive force which drives ahead the development
of society.

Here
we will stress some fundamental characteristics of the class struggle
in socialism, the understanding of which conditions the correct
waging of the class struggle by the party and the masses. Which are
some of these characteristics?

The
class struggle in socialism after the liquidation of the exploiting
classes, though not waged as a struggle between antagonistic classes,
continues and will continue throughout the whole period of socialism
up to communism. At present this struggle is waged against the
bourgeois, traitor and hostile elements to socialism, on the one
hand, or elements who are born from our own ranks as a result of the
bourgeois pressure from inside and within, and on the other hand, it
is waged also in the midst of the party and people, in which the new
fights with the old, the materialist world-outlook clashes with the
idealistic world-outlook, proletarian ideology with bourgeois and
revisionist ideology, personal interest with general interest,
communist morality with bourgeois morality, and so on.

Even
in the conditions of socialism the class struggle is waged
simultaneously on all fronts: political, economic and ideological,
and the 7th Congress of the Party pointed out that the only
comprehensive and consistent class struggle is that which is waged at
the same time in all its main directions. But today when we say that
we have achieved the triumph of the socialist revolution in the
political and economic field and raise the fundamental task of
securing the complete triumph of the revolution also in the field of
ideology, without which the political and economic victories cannot
be guaranteed, either, it is clear that the class struggle on the
ideological front will necessarily assume special importance. “This
is the greatest front of our struggle", says Comrade Enver
Hoxha, “the most complicated, the most potentially dangerous,
one which calls for the greatest attention of the party, the people's
power and the masses and their greatest militancy" (E. Hoxha,
Reports and Speeches”, 1972-1973, p. 280).

The
Party has stressed that the class struggle in any field, whether
ideological, political, economic, cultural or military, in the last
analysis, is connected with the question of the political power as
the fundamental question of the revolution; even in the conditions of
socialism it has to do with the question: is the dictatorship of the
proletariat to be preserved and strengthened and will the development
of the country on the socialist road be guaranteed, or will the road
be opened to the re-establishment of capitalism. This is the
objective content of the class struggle which is waged in our
country. Nevertheless, for the class struggle to be waged in a
correct manner, it is important to distinguish clearly and not to
confuse the subjective motives of our people with the objective
consequences of their wrong views and stands. The matter stands
differently when we have to do with hostile and traitor elements, who
have taken upon themselves to achieve their open or underhand
counter-revolutionary aims, and when we have to do with our own
people who are lined with the party and the people's power and who
work and fight for the revolution and socialism, but who may also
have wrong concepts and take stands and attitudes alien to the
socialist ideology and order. The contradictions between us and the
first group of people are antagonistic, while those in the second
group are non-antagonistic.

In
the conditions of capitalism, the working class and the working
masses wage the class struggle only from below, whereas in socialism
this struggle is waged from both directions, both from above, by the
party and the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and from
below, by the working class and the working masses themselves. Any
one-sidedness on this question, as the experience of the Soviet
Union, China and the other countries which degenerated into
revisionism and capitalism shows, is fraught with harmful
consequences for the cause of socialism. The party and the state of
the dictatorship of the proletariat are the most powerful weapons of
carrying the class struggle of the proletariat, the socialist
revolution through to the end, therefore they must he continuously
defended and strengthened parallel with the extensive application of
the line of the masses in the class struggle, by putting the working
class and the working masses in such conditions in which they
themselves can take an active part in this struggle, as the most
secure road for closing the path to the danger of
bourgeois-revisionist degeneration and for the revolutionary
education and tempering of the masses themselves. This is the correct
line which our Party has followed, thanks to which the cause of
socialism in Albania has always advanced triumphantly.

In
societies divided into antagonistic classes, the class struggle,
despite its ebbs and flows, grows steadily more acute and reaches its
acme in the political revolution. In the conditions of the
dictatorship of the proletariat, as our Party has long ago defined,
the class struggle develops with ebbs and tides, with zigzags, at
times mounting high, at times ebbing low, but never it is interrupted
or extinguished. This conclusion is completely correct. It is a
faithful reflection of the objective dialectics of the development of
the class struggle and is directed both against opportunism and
sectarianism; it helps always maintain a correct, vigilant and wise
stand in the class struggle.

One
of the most important features of the class struggle in our socialist
country is that it is waged in the conditions of the savage
bourgeois-revisionist encirclement, which makes this struggle
especially important and sharp. The capitalist-revisionist
encirclement, as Comrade Enver Hoxha has said, is not just a
geographical notion, nor is it a passive encirclement, but a hostile,
active and threatening encirclement, from which our country is
threatened with many great dangers: the danger of military
aggression, economic pressure and blockades, and the ideological
diversion and aggression. There is a close connection, coordination
and interaction between the internal front and the external front of
the class struggle. Without overlooking their other plans and aims,
the external enemies today attach special importance to the
disintegration of our internal front through the encouragement of
liberalism and the anti-socialist elements and
counter-revolutionaries. Therefore, the Party stressed at its 7th
Congress, “We must confront the united front of the enemies by
strengthening our internal front in all directions, in the field of
defence and the economy, policy and ideology, by always consistently
waging the class struggle.”

Just
as the objective law of the class struggle has its specific features,
the dialectical law of unity and struggle of opposites, of the
development through contradictions, has its concrete aspects, too.
Here changes are made both in the character of contradiction and in
the character of unity, new relations are formed between them and new
ways are found for overcoming contradictions.

On
the basis of the correct understanding and implementation of this
dialectical law, the Party has tempered that steel-like unity of our
people, who have coped with the great historic tests and have been
transformed into a new motive force. Underlying the basis of this
unity is the alliance of the working class with the cooperativist
peasantry. This unity has been strengthened and tempered on the basis
of the major social, economic, political and ideological
transformations which have been carried out in the life of our
country in the process of a fierce class struggle against the
internal and external enemies as well as in the midst of the people.
The Party has invariably followed a wise and correct policy in regard
to the relations between the friendly strata of our society, the
relations between cadres and masses, and has carried out an intensive
and differentiated ideological and political work among the masses
for the strengthening of the unity of the people. Of great importance
in this respect is the struggle of the Party, together with the
masses, against bureaucracy and liberalism, alien leftovers and
manifestations, religion and backward customs, which weighed heavily
especially on the woman, which oppressed and smothered her, thus
depriving the unity of the people of a colossal force.

The
unity of our people is one of the greatest victories of socialism and
of the correct line of the Party. It is a factor of vital importance
for the construction of socialism and the defence of the homeland,
and as such it should be continuously strengthened and defended by
correctly waging the class struggle, combating all liberal or
sectarian stands, and giving timely solutions to the various problems
which emerge in the course of this struggle.

In
regard to the relationship between unity and struggle of opposites,
two wrong concepts are notable. One such concept is that which
negates contradictions, which sees them as something evil, and which
prettifies and veneers the reality, seeing everything, all processes
and phenomena in socialist society, in the light of unity alone, by
overestimating and absolutizing unity. This is the view held by the
Khrushchevite revisionists and in fact by all the opportunists as a
whole. The essence of the opportunist policy has been and remains the
reconciliation of opposites by preaching about their unity. This is
the theoretical basis of the departure from the class struggle and of
the class conciliation both inside the country and in the
international arena.

The
other wrong concept is that which negates unity and accepts only
contradictions, which in every instance sees unity as something evil,
that represents conservatism and inhibition of development, and which
in everything tries to find and create contradictions. The Chinese
revisionists, in particular, stick to this concept. Mao Tsetung
raised the division of the whole into two to absolute principle. With
this he wanted to find some theoretical basis for his course of
sanctioning and permitting the existence of antagonistic classes in
socialism and two lines in the party, the existence of other
bourgeois and reactionary classes in the conditions of the
dictatorship of the proletariat, the cultural revolution which should
be repeated time and again. At the foundations of the policy pursued
by the Chinese revisionists lies division, but not division with the
reactionaries, the imperialists, the revisionists, but division of
the people, the party, the dictatorship of the proletariat and
socialism, and alliance and unity with the opponents of socialism and
the class enemies.

Thus,
though starting from different standpoints, the Khrushchevite
revisionists from the standpoint of unity, and the Chinese
revisionists from the standpoint of division, both sides come to the
same pass in their reactionary and counter-revolutionary policy.

From
the theoretical angle the source of these views and stands lies in
the distortion of the dialectical law on unity and struggle of
opposites and the specific nature of the operation of this law in
socialism. The experience of our country proves that the unity of the
party, the people, socialist society has been formed and continually
strengthened on the basis of the solution of various contradictions,
antagonistic and non-antagonistic, by waging the class struggle
correctly and consistently. The progressive new in socialism, too,
always makes headway through the struggle of opposites. A similarly
great role is played also by the unity of the party, the people,
society, which becomes a new motive force that promotes the
development of the country. This is connected with the character of
the contradictions which exist in the context of unity, mainly as
non-antagonistic contradictions, in which the opposites are not in
irreconcilable struggle with each other, as is the case of
contradictions under capitalism between the bourgeoisie and the
proletariat. Here we have to do mainly with a unity of opposites in
which both sides of the contradiction are generally progressive, and
their essential interests coincide. Such unity helps society advance,
because it assists, creates favourable conditions to give solution to
various contradictions existing in this unity, which, thus, is raised
to a higher level.

This
leads to the next important problem, i.e., on the place which
antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions occupy in our
society. Acceptance of the two types of contradictions in socialism
is a principled question. Acceptance only of the non-antagonistic
contradictions and negation of the antagonistic contradictions even
after the liquidation of the exploiting classes, as the modern,
Khrushchevite and other revisionists, do, is in opposition to the
objective reality. They need it to negate the class struggle in
socialism and to cloak the revisionist counter-revolution which they
have carried out in their own countries. But it is just the same
wrong and of harmful consequences to fail to see the changes made in
socialism with the liquidation of the exploiting classes and to put
antagonistic contradictions on the same footing as the
non-antagonistic contradictions. Antagonistic contradictions are
typical, characteristic of societies divided into antagonistic
classes. In socialist society, where these classes have ceased to
exist, antagonistic contradictions do not stem from the nature of the
socialist order itself. They emerge and exist as a product of the
leftovers of the old bourgeois society inside the country and the
pressure of the capitalist-revisionist encirclement from outside, and
these factors exist objectively, but are alien to the socialist order
and its ideology. Therefore, from a deep assessment of antagonistic
contradictions, it emerges that the non-antagonistic contradictions
are characteristic of socialist society without antagonistic classes.

On
the other hand, we must not forget that the non-antagonistic
contradictions may turn antagonistic. This our enemies are trying to
achieve by spreading their ideology, culture and decadent way of
life, by encouraging liberalism and bureaucracy, discord and
discontent, theft and embezzlement, etc. And this happens whenever
the stand towards the class enemy, its ideology and activity, are
opportunist and liberal, when vigilance and the stern struggle
against it are weakened or altogether neglected, when a wrong policy
in connection with the relationships between various classes and
strata in society, between cadres and masses, etc., is followed. If
Albania did not go through the retrogressive process which occurred
in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, this is accounted for by the fact
that our Party has known how to treat correctly the two types of
contradictions, and has not allowed non-antagonistic contradictions
to become antagonistic contradictions.

3.
Socialism and Democracy

The
question of the relationship between socialism and democracy has been
and remains one of the fundamental questions in the clash between the
proletarian ideology and the bourgeois ideology, the political
struggle between two opposed systems – socialist and
capitalist. This struggle began as early as the time of the triumph
of the October Revolution in Russia and continues just as fierce up
to our days. Even today, the enemies of communism, the bourgeoisie
and the reactionaries, the social-democrats and the revisionists
extol the bourgeois democracy and furiously attack the dictatorship
of the proletariat under the allegation that it is the negation of
democracy. They carry out similar attacks against socialist order in
our country, by labelling it all sorts of epithets such as
“Stalinist”, “totalitarian”, “conservative”,
“destroyer of religion and ancient traditions”,
“smothering the freedoms and personality of man”, etc.

We
are clear about the aim of the enemies. They await to discredit the
ideas of socialism and undermine the socialist order by seeking all
possible ways and means to encourage liberalism allegedly in the name
of democracy and freedom. However, their attacks, vituperations and
speculations cannot overshadow the great truth that only the
socialist order, built according to the Marxist-Leninist theory, is
the most democratic order ever known to history. In his speech,
“Proletarian Democracy is Genuine Democracy”, held in
September last year, at the meeting of the General Council of the
Democratic Front of Albania, Comrade Enver Hoxha has once again
exposed the falsity and deceptive nature of bourgeois democracy and
has brought many facts to show the incomparable superiority of
proletarian democracy, as the broadest, most complete and real
democracy for the broad masses of the people.

The
triumph of the revolution and the establishment of the people's power
opened the broad road not only to the rapid material-economic
development and progress of society, but also to the all-round
development of socialist democracy, to the genuine liberation of the
working man. “The 29th of November”, says Comrade Enver
Hoxha, “marks in our history the dividing line between two
worlds, the one in which the people all their lives had been trampled
underfoot by the ‘powerful' and in which they had no rights
altogether, and the world in which they were raised to the pedestal
of the all-powerful master of their own destinies” (E. Hoxha,
“20 Years of New Socialist Albania”, Tirana 1964, p. 6).

The
character of a social order cannot be judged in an abstract manner,
from its formal aspects and the juridical provisions about democratic
freedoms and rights. Democracy is a political, class notion, and the
only way to judge about it correctly is from its class contents and
from its practical implementation in life. The question, Lenin says,
is raised like this: Freedom from the oppression by which class?
Equality of which class and with which? Democracy on the basis of
private ownership or on the basis of the struggle for the liquidation
of private ownership?

The
state is the welding of the dictatorship with democracy. The
bourgeois ideologists and the modern revisionists try in vain to
negate this connection and lay down the liquidation of the
dictatorship of the proletariat as a condition for the development of
democracy in socialism. Dictatorship and democracy are two
inseparable aspects of the state, they are two opposites which, while
in fact they reciprocally exclude each other, still are two opposites
in dialectical unity, which cannot exist independently of each other.
The essence of the question is what is dictatorship for and what is
democracy for.

With
the transition to socialism and especially after the liquidation of
the exploiting classes, a great quantitative and qualitative change
takes place in socialism in the relationship between dictatorship and
democracy. From limited democracy for the exploiting minority and the
savage dictatorship for the exploited majority, which has been the
nature of all states in the past, independently of the forms they
had, in the socialist state we witness an unprecedented development
of democracy for the overwhelming majority of the people and stern
dictatorship for the minority of the exploiters, or later, for their
leftovers and other enemies of socialism.

From
these changes it does not follow that, as the Khrushchevite
revisionists say, now as long as the typically social function of the
state, as a means in the hands of a class for the exploitation of
other classes, is invalid, and the existence of the dictatorship of
the proletariat is no longer needed, and since the socialist state
ceases to exist as the weapon of the political domination of one
class over another, it, thus loses its class character, too, and
becomes a “state of the entire people”.

Of
course, when the antagonistic classes have ceased to exist in the
life of society, there can be no talk of the domination of one class
over other classes, because in our country today relationships
between the working class, the cooperativist peasantry and the
people's intelligentsia are not relationships of domination and
subjugation, oppression and exploitation, but relationships based on
alliance, mutual collaboration and aid. However this does not mean
that the state loses its class character. If the domination of one
class over other classes has been wiped out this does not mean that
the domination of the working class over the various enemies of
socialism has been wiped out too, that the leadership of the working
class over all the other classes and strata of socialist society has
been wiped out. Lenin has defined the essence of the dictatorship of
the proletariat as leadership of the working class in the state. This
leading role of the working class remains in force completely for as
long as the classes are not wiped out from society, until the
overthrow of capitalism and the complete and final triumph of
communism are achieved on a world scale. And the working class does
not and cannot play this leading role in the state of the
dictatorship of the proletariat and in the entire life of socialist
society in a direct manner, except through its Marxist-Leninist
communist party, and on this question, too, the modern revisionists
claim the opposite as true.

Irrespective
of the limitation the repressive function of the socialist state
undergoes in the process of its development, and it cannot fail to do
so, this function does not cease to exist. It is still necessary not
only to crush the resistance put up by the leftovers of former
exploiting classes, to crush any hostile activity which is carried
out by the foreign enemies, but also to crush the new bourgeois, the
anti-socialist elements who emerge in the course of the class
struggle inside the country. Therefore, by accepting the changes
which the repressive function of the socialist state in the form of
the dictatorship of the proletariat undergoes it is important not to
underestimate in the least the vital character of this function for
the successful continuation of the revolution and ensuring the final
triumph of the socialist road over the capitalist road of
development. This must be kept well in mind, especially in the
conditions of our country, encircled by the hostile waves of the
capitalist and revisionist world, which exerts great and all-round
pressure on our country and our people and becomes the cause of many
evils which threaten the socialist order.

Our
Party has abided and continues to abide by the Marxist thesis that
without the dictatorship of the proletariat it is impossible to
defend socialist democracy from the attempts of external and internal
enemies and all the forces, traditions and influences of the old
capitalist world and the revisionist world, which want to undermine
and destroy it, just as it is true that without the all-round
development of democracy, without drawing in the broad masses of
working people to take an active part in the governing of the
country, the dictatorship of the proletariat is in danger of being
transformed into a bureaucratic-administrative dictatorship, which
places itself above the people, in opposition to the people, as
happened in the revisionist countries. The strength of our socialist
order lies precisely in its close links with the broad masses of the
people, in the powerful support which they give it, in their
participation for the discussion and solution of state and social
problems.

The
democratic nature of a social order is determined, in the last
analysis, by the fact in whose hands are the means of production. The
liquidation of private ownership, and together with it of the
exploiting class and the exploitation of man by man, is a colossal
development of democracy, because genuine democracy, freedom and
equality cannot exist where private ownership, the capitalist
relations of oppression, subjugation and exploitation, prevail.
“There can be no genuine equality between the patron and the
worker, between the landowner and the peasant”, says J.V.
Stalin, “as long as the former have the wealth and political
weight in society, while the latter have none; as long as the former
are exploiters and the latter are exploited" (J.V. Stalin,
Works, vol. 14, p. 61). On the basis of the liquidation of private
ownership in our country, the striking inequality, the great gap
which divides the classes in capitalist society, has also been
liquidated, and the social, political, and economic unity of our new
society is created, in which the existing distinctions between the
working class and the peasantry, town and countryside, mental and
physical work grow continuously narrower, and in which all working
people work for themselves and for their society, and are remunerated
according to the work they do.

One
of the fundamental features and main direction of the development of
socialist democracy is the increased participation of the masses in
the governing of the country. In our country, all power springs from
the people and belongs to the working people. It is exercised through
the representative organs and directly by the working class, the
cooperativist peasantry and other working people, too, without any
limitation or privilege in the rights and duties of the citizens
following from sex, race, nationality, education, social position and
material well-being. The entire organization of our state and the
methods and forms of direction in its activity are such as to enable
the broadest masses of working people to take an active part in the
government of the country. In our country, the people's revolution
destroyed the foundations of that bureaucratic system of government
which dominates in the capitalist, bourgeois and revisionist
countries and which is exercised by the exploiting classes in power
and by the stratum of bureaucrats in its service, which keeps the
masses as far as possible from the effective levers of exercising
power, thus raising an insurmountable wall between the masses and
these levers.

Of
great importance for the development of socialist democracy and the
defence of the dictatorship of the proletariat are the teachings of
Comrade Enver Hoxha on the worker and peasant control, as a form of
direct and organized control which is exercised under the leadership
of the Party, on the activity of the state organs, the economic and
social organizations and on their working people, and which extends
on all fields of life. This control by the working class and the
masses from below is a powerful weapon in the struggle against
bureaucracy and liberalism, against any alien influence and
manifestation in the work of cadres, organs and apparatuses; it is a
living expression of the role of the working class and the masses in
the whole life of the country, a great school for the revolutionary
education and tempering and which increases their leading and control
capacity.

The
establishment of correct relationships between cadres and masses is
another important question connected with the defence and development
of socialist democracy. The problem is to stop that dangerous
phenomenon which occurred in the Soviet Union and in the former
socialist countries where the state cadres and office workers became
bureaucrats, isolated themselves from the people, and from servants
became rulers of the people. In order to bar the path to this evil,
our Party has taken special care for the education of the cadres,
closely connecting this with the education of the masses, for the
establishment of correct relationships between them, for putting the
cadres in such socio-economic conditions in which they think, work,
fight and live always like revolutionaries, as loyal servants of the
people.

Our
people have never enjoyed the democratic freedoms and rights which
they enjoy today. These freedoms and rights in our country are not
only proclaimed and defended by law, but the socialist order created
the objective conditions for their complete implementation in life.
In the capitalist and revisionist countries, even when proclaimed in
constitutions, these freedoms and rights have a formal and deceptive
nature, because numerous restrictions are imposed in practice, the
condition for their fulfilment does not exist, and on top of this,
when the bourgeoisie sees that its interests are at stake in the
least, it altogether disregards them and establishes the savage
fascist dictatorship. Bourgeois democracy, Lenin has pointed out,
though a great historic progress in comparison with the Middle Ages,
always remains and cannot but remain a narrow, curtailed, false,
hypocritical democracy, a paradise for the rich, a trap and fraud for
the exploited, for the poor.

In
the capitalist revisionist world there prevail the laws of the
jungle, there is no humanism, no freedom, there is insecurity,
poverty, fear, unemployment, degeneration. The contrary happens in
our socialist country, where the people are in power, live free and
happy. In our country the life of the masses is continuously
improved. Socialist Albania knows no strikes and unemployment, taxes
and price increases, anarchy and inflation; health service and
education are given free of charge and the house rents are very low.

Even
when confronted with such natural calamities as earthquakes, floods,
devastations by fire, our people have never felt themselves isolated
and abandoned to the mercy of the fate, as happens in the capitalist,
bourgeois, and revisionist countries, where such calamities become a
real tragedy for the working people and a source of profit for the
exploiting classes, for the various speculators and dealers. The
grave consequences of the earthquake of April 15 were liquidated
within a very short time in our country, with all expenditure being
met by the state and the new houses were given gratis and rent-free
to the peasants whose houses were destroyed. This lofty humanism of
our socialist order, the great solidarity of people, the vitality of
our economy, which is in a position to cope with such large-scale
construction work within such a short time, relying on its own forces
without any aid from abroad, were manifested in the course of this
great action. “Only socialism, constructed according to the
teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin,” Comrade Enver
Hoxha stressed at the meeting in Bahçellëk of Shkodra,
“is the socio-economic order which, in any case, transforms any
calamity into great revolutionary strength which subdues any grief,
which copes with any difficulty and makes people happy”.

There
is no democracy where the masses are oppressed not only politically
and economically, but also spiritually. The bourgeoisie and the
revisionists with various and many powerful means of propaganda and
with their innumerable institutions of ideological influence, such as
the press, the radio, television, school, culture, arts,
advertisement, the church, etc., enslave the working people
spiritually, try to .confuse them and to estrange them from the
revolutionary ideals. In these countries, corruption and crime, drug
addiction and kidnapping of people, violence and terror have become
incurable social ills.

A
radical change has been made in the life of our socialist country in
this field of democracy, too. The Party has seen and sees the
struggle for the liberation of the consciousness of the working
people from the heavy ideological burden of the exploiting classes,
from the religious dogma and superstition, from old customs and
traditions, from, the idealist and metaphysical world outlook, from
the standards of bourgeois morality, as a condition necessary to
emancipate the working man. This struggle is not in the least “a
violation of the freedom of conscience", as the reactionary
bourgeois propaganda tries to make out, but a struggle of historic
importance for the education of the new man of new society, for the
development of all his creative abilities, for the enrichment of his
personality and the enhancement of its role in the entire life of the
country. From this standpoint, the concepts of “ideological
pluralism”, which the modern revisionists, especially the
Chinese and the “Eurocommunists” trumpet so loudly, are
altogether alien and anti-Marxist.

Their
attacks against the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, as
the highest type of democracy, have been concentrated especially on
the leading and undivided role of the communist party. The
revisionists see the extinction of this role and the implementation
of the bourgeois system of many parties in socialism as conditional
for the development of democracy, as its highest expression. But it
is known that the number of parities has never been and will never be
a yardstick of democracy. Neither the existence of many parties, nor
the existence of a single party determines the democratic character
of a social order. There are .capitalist, bourgeois and revisionist
countries where there are many parties, there are also such countries
where there is a single party, and yet social order there is
anti-democratic in its essence. “It takes no explanation,”
says Comrade Enver Hoxha, “to prove that, by sharing state
power, many bourgeois, capitalist, revisionist and fascist parties of
such capitalist and imperialist countries as the United States of
America and others, do not .in the least transform their societies
from reactionary into progressive societies. On the contrary, under
imperialism, the turn is made from democracy to reaction. A society
which defends and relies on the exploiting order is neither
progressive nor democratic. Likewise, when state power is in the
hands of a single party, which does not pursue a Marxist-Leninist
line, which is not a party of the proletariat, it can never lead to
the construction of socialism. On the contrary, no matter what such a
party calls itself, whether “Marxist”, or
“Marxist-Leninist”, it is in reality a party of the
bourgeoisie or a fascist party” (E. Hoxha., “Proletarian
Democracy is Genuine Democracy”, pp. 20 21, Tirana 1978, Engl.
ed.).

In
socialism, in its initial period, there may exist several political
parties. The existence of these parities in this period is
conditioned by the historical circumstances, in which the transition
to socialism is made in any country as well as by .the fact that in
this period there still exist the exploiting class, the individual
peasantry and the stratum of the old intelligentsia, which further
their individual interests. It must be pointed out that even in these
conditions the leading role in the state and society belongs only to
one party, the communist party of the working class. However, if the
existence of these various parties in this period is inevitable,
their sanctioning cannot be justified in the later period of
socialism, where the exploiting classes are liquidated, the socialist
collectivization of agriculture is accomplished, the new
intelligentsia is formed, the community of the fundamental interests
between the working class and the cooperativist peasantry as well as
the people's intelligentsia is created, which is characteristic of
the new socialist society. In these conditions there are no objective
socio-economic bases for the existence of other political parties.

According
to the Italian revisionists, “even after the destruction of the
economic base of society and the liquidation of its division into
antagonistic classes, different interests will continue to exist, the
ideological, political, cultural and religious trends and traditions
will still retain their value. “With this”, they say, “we
explain the possibility of the existence and operation of several
parties and their replacing each other in the governing of the state
even in the conditions of the socialist and democratic regeneration
of society” (Problems of Peace and Socialism, No. 3, 1979). But
what are these different interests which will continue to exist even
after the liquidation of antagonistic classes? If this refers to the
interests of the working classes and strata, they are expressed and
defended by the communist party and hence no need for other parties.
In these conditions, the other parties can express and defend only
the interests of the overthrown exploiting classes or of the other
enemies of socialism, since it is known that the political parties
are class parties, they work to achieve the aims of certain given
classes, to lead their struggle for power. But what trends and
traditions will preserve their value in socialism, too? If they are
democratic and progressive trends and traditions, they are quite well
expressed and defended by the communist party. Then, does it follow
from this that we should sanction the anti-Marxist and anti-socialist
ideological and political trends, the bourgeois and reactionary
cultural traditions, and even the obscurantist religious trends and
traditions? This is precisely what the modern revisionists want to
do, to undermine and disrupt the genuine socialist society.

The
modern revisionists speculate largely on democracy. Loudest of all in
this are the Eurocommunist revisionists, who have come out with a new
variant of socialism, which, according to them, is neither that of
social-democracy nor that of real socialism known so far. It is the
third road, or the number three variant of socialism. This, they say,
is “democratic” socialism which will be established and
constructed on the “democratic” road.

The
socialism of the “Eurocommunists” is a sort of
“socialism” which will be established not through the
revolution, but with reforms and by winning the majority of the seats
in parliament through elections: without overthrowing the power of
the bourgeoisie and without breaking its bureaucratic-military
apparatus, but with the aid of this power and its apparatus, which,
they preach, is “being socialized”-ever more; without the
leadership of the working class and its Marxist Leninist party, but
together with all the classes and bourgeois and reactionary political
parties; without being inspired and led by the proletarian ideology,
but with a variety of ideological and political trends. Berlinguer
has even said that even “religious conscience can arouse the
believer to an effort of achieving the regeneration of society
towards socialism” (“Rinascita”, October 14, 1977,
p. 4).

As
for “democratic socialism”, which will be established on
this “democratic road”, its features, in fact, are the
negation of genuine socialism.

In
the political field it altogether negates the dictatorship of the
proletariat and the undivided leadership of the Marxist-Leninist
communist party. Instead of the dictatorship of the proletariat it
preaches a democratic parliamentarian bourgeois form of the state,
which, according to them, is the “highest institutional form of
the state including also the socialist state”, “it
constitutes the basis and, relying on this, the working class goes
towards the seizure of power and builds socialism” (“Problems
of Peace and Socialism”, N°. 10, 1978). Whereas, instead of
leadership by the communist party, they preach political pluralism –
the bourgeois system of many parties – including even those
which maintain a hostile stand towards socialism, which should
replace one another in the government, depending on the number of
votes they win in parliamentary elections.

In
the economic field it negates the socialist socialization of
ownership and the planned direction of the economy by the state on
the basis of democratic centralism. “Democratic socialism”
they claim, will rely on “a mixed economy”, on the
coexistence of the elements of private ownership, the freedom of
competition, on the one hand, and the existence of the social
ownership and plan, on the other, which will complement and condition
each other. The Eurocommunists openly declare that, in socialism for
which they are fighting, “alongside of the state sector the
private sector of the economy will exist, and the ownership of the
working peasantry in free association with the handicraftsmen, the
small and middle-sized industrial enterprises, the private
entrepreneurs in the sphere of services, will play a special role.”
(“Problems of Peace and Socialism”, N°. 3, year
1979).

In
the ideological field they negate the domination of the
Marxist-Leninist socialist ideology, which, according to them, has
become obsolete and cannot serve as the ideological basis of the
party of the working class. Instead of this ideology, they claim
“neutrality in world outlook” and “ideological
pluralism”, complete freedom for all the ideological,
political, cultural and religious trends and currents.

In
the field of foreign policy they negate proletarian
internationalism, the struggle against imperialism and
neo-colonialism, against the military and economic alliances of
imperialism. The fundamental principle of “democratic
socialism” in this field is “Atlantism”, i.e.,
loyalty to NATO and the European Common Market.

This
is, in broad outlines, the physiognomy of “democratic
socialism” of the Eurocommunists. It is obvious that it has
nothing at all in common with genuine socialism; it is a downright
negation of all the fundamental .principles and laws of scientific
socialism. In essence, despite all their claims about the “democratic
socialism”, this socialism of theirs and the “democratic
socialism” of social-democracy, are as like as two drops of
water, and in fact, are nothing other than the present day capitalist
order.

The
Party of Labour of Albania, by fighting and refuting with
determination the attacks and slanders of the modern revisionists
against socialism and proletarian democracy, has defended and
implemented in practice the teachings of our great classics, Marx,
Engels, Lenin and Stalin. It has seen and sees the all-round
development of socialist democracy as the fundamental direction of
the development of our entire political and social system, the
strengthening and consolidation of the dictatorship of the
proletariat, without which there can be no genuine democracy for the
masses of the people.

In
these thirty-five years under the leadership of the Party, the
Albanian people have realized their centuries-long aspirations, the
most daring dreams of their outstanding thinkers, the lofty ideals
for which our heroic partisans fought and the best sons and daughters
of the people gave their lives. Albania today has become the country
of triumphant socialism, a developed and advanced country, free and
sovereign, with a stable economy and secure defence, with authority
and prestige in the world, with numerous friends and well-wishers in
all the countries. It holds high the banner of the struggle against
imperialism, reaction and revisionism, the invincible banner of
Marxism-Leninism, the revolution and socialism. These historic
achievements are the living and most complete testimony of the
correctness of the general Marxist-Leninist line of our heroic Party,
of its wise and far-sighted leadership, of the vitality of the
illuminating teachings of the leaders of our Party and people,
Comrade Enver Hoxha.